A Time Before And After
by D. M. Domini
Summary: The jump forward /between/ times to the 9th Pass split some families apart. A dragonrider goes back to the when he was born in to retrieve someone he's lost. Then the boy Impresses. COMPLETE.


**A Time Before and After**

_by D. M. Domini_

When the Weyrs came forward, there was a certain amount of secrecy. Those closest to a dragonrider knew, of course. Mates, current lovers. Children.

Some children, at least. Loved ones. Ones in the right place at the right time. Vanonire had come with his sire, and in time, had become V'nire, with a dragon of his own.

_Do you think he's here?_ V'nire asked bronze Msnth, when they came out of _between_ for the final time, tired and cold.

_You were,_ Msnth said. _He will be._ _I search for him!_

So the bronze did, and then they flew, over fields and Holds and meadows and mountains until they found the child.

#

Vanorian nearly ran away when the great bronze dragon landed in the meadow he was gathering herbs in. Mum hated dragonriders, hated them for taking his brother away, hated them for that awful day when they'd returned to the Weyr only to find it abandoned, and themselves now homeless and Holdless. No ordinary man wanted to support a cast-off weyrseeded woman and her mewling brat, not when they'd finally entered a time when thread no longer fell and the heavy tithe was no longer due.

And yet, even as he realized he would be in trouble if he stayed, he found his feet rooted to the ground. This was a _dragonrider,_ here and real unlike the faint memories he had from when he'd been only a toddling thing. "Are you here for me?" the boy asked the dragon, hope flaring up in his chest.

It was the rider that answered. "Yes, Vanorian."

"How do you know my name? Do you come in Search? Does Benden Weyr have a clutch? The greens say Benden does not Search, that they have more weyrbred than eggs, but my sire was a dragonrider! This makes me weyrbred."

The rider hesitated. "I do not come from Benden."

The child's eyes went huge. "Do you come from Fort? Ista? Igen? Do you know where they went? Do you know where High Reaches Weyr is?"

_Shall we take him back to Fort?_ the dragon asked his rider.

"No," the rider said after a moment of hesitation. "I don't know where Fort Weyr went. Or the others."

"You LIAR!" the boy yelled, angry they'd done so to his face. "The dragon just said Fort!"

The dragonman looked startled, then shot the dragon a look. "Fort Hold," he said.

"Liar. Liar, liar, dragon's fire!"

"You best be careful with that rhyme," the dragonrider said in amusement. "And who you sing it to. Why do you think I'm lying? You hear Msnth?"

Vanorian hesitated, thinking of lying in turn, but wanted to prove himself the better man. So he nodded. "Yes. When they come far enough out from Benden, I can hear them. Mum thinks I'm lying, but I'm not. You're the one who lies."

"Do you know who I am?" the man asked.

The boy studied his face. "No. But you look like me. Are we cousins? Dragonmen are all related...dragonmen spill their seed everywhere, mum says."

"We might be related. And mum shouldn't be talking that way in front of you."

The boy shrugged. "'least she doesn't hit me."

Dismay spread on the rider's face. "There's that, I suppose," he said softly, his eyes taking in Vanorian's grubby and threadbare appearance. "So do you want to come _between_ with us?"

"To Benden?"

"No."

"Ha. To Fort _Weyr_?"

_Fort Weyr doesn't exist now,_ the dragon said. _There is nobody there._

This caused Vanorian pause. "But you said—" Did the dragon lie? Could dragons lie?

_I did not lie, little one._

"To where then?"

"A place beyond _between_," the rider said.

"Will I become a dragonrider?"

"I don't know."

Vanorian shifted, feeling uneasy. "Then why do you want to take me away?"

_Because we love you,_ the dragon said.

Vanorian's eyes widened.

And then he shrieked and bolted, horrified in his marrow that even a dragonman could be _that_ way.

#

"For the sake of Faranth's blood!" V'nire said as his brother screamed and scampered off like death was on his heels. "Now he thinks I fiddle with little kids!"

_He is wrong,_ Msnth said. _I will tell him that._

V'nire crossed his arms and waited.

Eventually Msnth said, resignedly, _He says "Go away_, _you filthy wher buggerers". I have never flown a golden wher!_ the dragon added indignantly, disgust in his tone.

"No, but sometimes you're as stupid as one of them," V'nire muttered.

_You're _never_ as smart as one of them,_ the disgruntled bronze shot back.

#

When they returned to the Ninth Pass, V'nire tried to console himself that his brother was better off where and _when_ he was. That he'd grown into a man, perhaps taken up a good Craft like Harpering or Weaving, and had died happy already, and V'nire had just been trying to fight a fate that had already happened.

He convinced himself for a month. Then another.

Three months later, he did the star-charts again, and they plotted another jump back _between_ whens.

Maybe if the boy were older...

#

Vanorian grunted, seizing the rope with all of his thirteen turns of strength, and tying a tight knot in it.

All he got was a clout across the ear from a passing sailor. "Hurry up!" the man snapped.

Vanorian slunk away and hoped it would be easy enough to sneak away forever once they made Nerat. He didn't want to be a sailor, any more than he wanted to be Holdless, or a whore like his mother.

As he slunk over to the next spot and struggled with the rope, a glimmer in the cloudy sky caught his eye.

A dragonrider. Watching him.

Well, the rider could be watching the ship itself, that was more probable, but Vanorian reached out, knowing in his gut. _Msnth?_ he asked.

_Yes,_ came the answer.

Then the dragon winked _between_, and Vanorian could not find him.

No matter how much he searched or called with his thoughts, he could not find him.

The next sailor to pass him by saw tears on his face, and decided to give him something more to cry about than "Honest hard work".

#

When he saw the rider again, approaching him through the crowds of the busy Nerat Gather, the dragon itself nowhere in sight, he couldn't help but utter a cry of fury, and throw a feeble punch.

The rider caught the fist, then with a sudden movement pulled him close for a hug, for all the world as if they knew each other as kin.

Then suddenly the rider loosened his grip, and pushed Vanorian out by the shoulders to look at him. "You don't still think I'm a kiddy fiddler, do you?" he asked, alarm on his face.

Vanorian said, "Are you?"

"No."

"Then fine," the teenager said wearily. "But who _are_ you?"

The rider blinked, glanced around the Gather, then said, "Let's get you some food, shall we? And talk about that. You're as thin as a rail." He paused. "How's...how's mum?"

"_My_ mum is dead."

The bronze rider stilled. "...is...is that a good thing?"

The boy gave an odd half-smile. "She's probably happier at least. After the Weyrs vanished, and she couldn't be a paid stand-in no more, she never moved on. Nobody else pays as well for a stand-in as a dragonman who doesn't like tupping other men."

#

The dragonman watched the boy scarf down the food he'd bought him, grunting in appreciation at the warmth and taste. In the middle of it, he said, "My name is V'nire. You seem to know my dragon's name already."

There was no reaction. The lad kept eating.

"Da took me when he...vanished. He left you behind. I don't know why, except maybe he didn't want to hurt mum too bad bay taking both of us."

The lad stopped eating. Then he wiped his hands against his pants pensively as if he might do something, and began eating again. "You're older than me," he said finally around the food, flecks of something flying out. "You were last time, too. Much older. Which means you're a liar. You're not my brother."

"If you want to think that, I don't blame you. The facts certainly seem to point that way."

"Where did the Weyrs go?"

"I can't tell you."

The lad continued to eat, putting more food away than V'nire would have believed possible.

Eventually Vanorian said, "If I let you tup me, will you keep feeding me like this? I know some of you riders like men. I've got some of my growth. I'm close enough. And I'll get bigger if I'm eating."

A sharp pain seemed to go through his heart, to hear his brother say that. But he realized pity would not be good to show, and stifled it before speaking. "I thought we already established I don't want that. But if you come with me, you'll be fed and clothed, and get a Harper education too if you don't have much of one."

"What good is a Harper education?"

What good is...V'nire thought of all the things Harpers had accomplished in his own time...

His own time. Which this wasn't, not anymore, even if he'd been born in it. "It's better than being slapped around by sailors. And proper Crafts like you better for it; means they don't have to put you through remedial education before they teach you what they're supposed to teach you."

Vanorian said nothing.

"Well, think on it."

"How long?"

"If you came with me, it would be for forever."

"No, I mean...how long until you vanish again? How long until I don't have time to think it over?"

V'nire scratched his chin. He could sleep here with his dragon for a few days before he'd have to figure out where he could steal a few beasts to feed Msnth without getting Benden Weyr in trouble or involved. He didn't like doing jumps in this time though, like the one where they came to Nerat to wait. The coordinates he and his bronze remembered from the 9th Pass were stronger in his mind than anything that correlated to this particular _when, _and he was afraid he'd jump forward by accident, hundreds of turns all at once, and they'd die.

So a couple of days. Or a couple of turns, so he could calculate the changes of the heavens.

But the lad had, in a way, already had turns and turns to think it over. "Three days," he said.

"Okay. Where will I be able to find you?"

"Just ask Msnth. He'll lead you to us."

#

Exactly one day later, the boy came to them. "I wanted to tell you, I'm not coming with you."

V'nire, who had been lounging on Msnth's paw, playing with star numbers, sat with a jerk. "What?" he snapped. "That's...that's insane! You don't have a Hold. Or a Craft. Mum's dead. Da's not here. You wanted to sell your skinny little arse to me for some food, no telling what I might have done to you—"

"You would have fucked me. I know that. What I don't know is what happens..._between_. If you take me away. You won't even tell me. You're probably just some Benden bastard playing games!"

"You're the most completely stubborn little wher-egg I've ever met!" V'nire shouted.

_Not quite,_ the dragon interjected.

"Oh shut up."

"People don't do things for free. If they say they do, it's just a set up for something bigger."

_We won't hurt you,_ Msnth said. _We love you._

Vanorian shook his head. "No." And he began to walk away.

V'nire frantically shuffled through the hides he'd been looking at. Two turns. He could come back again, in two turns. Maybe his _idiot_ brother's mind would be changed then. _If he's not already dead,_ he fretted. "Vanorian!" he shouted.

"No!" the lad said.

"Two turns. I'll be back in two turns! You be right here, right on this spot, now, if you want to come with me then. But I can't keep doing this! I can't, it's not an easy thing to do, to come back again and again. It's dangerous. Something could go wrong."

His brother kept walking.

"VANORIAN! Two turns!"

His brother flailed a hand like he was telling V'nire to forget about it, then vanished around a bend.

"Do something!" V'nire told his bronze.

_I've been trying. He's too afraid. Every change he's had in his life has been a bad one. I told him we love him, no matter what he's done or what has happened to him, and he's scared of that too._ The dragon's eyes whirled in distress.

"For the love of..." V'nire sat himself down, and began working the numbers and orbits again. "You know, we won't even go back first. We'll just go forward. Less jumps. And next time—just grab him around the chest and take him!"

#

_Black, blacker, blackest—_

_ —and cold beyond the frozen things—_

The most unsettling thing about trips _between_ times was that there was no security in knowing exactly how long the jump should last. It could be barely longer than a regular trip _between_, or it could be much longer.

V'nire felt tired, and cold. He couldn't see anything, hear anything outside of his own head.

And his dragon's.

He moved closer to his dragon—or, imagined that he did—to warm himself against the great bulk. _Between is long._

—_V'nire,_ Msnth said. _We need to go back._

_What?_ V'nire thought, sleep tugging at his thoughts.

_There's something wrong._

Silence.

_V'nire? V'nire, V'nire. Come closer to me, we are going back._

V'nire did. He crept very close to his dragon's mind, and went to sleep.

#

Vanorian wet his pants in fear when the dragon erupted out of _between_ above him, screaming.

He screamed along with it, feeling terror, and death, and horror as a body slipped from the screaming bronze's shoulders.

The body fell.

It fell through the air.

And then it hit the trees. Vanorian saw the trees shudder at the impact, saw stray firelizards and whersports and insects go flying away.

The dragon was still screaming in his head. And screaming above him. He turned and ran, ran as fast as he could, but the dragon reached out, snatched him up around his chest, and went _between_.

#

Nobody could hear him scream in _between_. He screamed anyway.

_I love you,_ the dragon whined in his head, pushing in harder and harder, like liquid dripping in through a crack in a glass. _We are one. I love you._ There was a strange echo in the voice, of another person, another man.

_I don't know who you are!_

_But we are one. We have always been one. I take us home, now. All three of us. And it will be better, when we are in the right time. You will see._

They burst out of _between_ into the light. Vanorian screamed his head off, but they were only in the light for a moment, before they went _between_ again.

The dragon did this to them, again, and again.

Then, finally, they burst into the sky above Fort Weyr. He knew it was Fort Weyr because—

—because—

For a second two sets of memories lined up in his head. The old one he'd always had, of being firmly held on his da's lap, not much more than three.

And new ones, of being here, not in Msnth's claws like a trapped wherry, but on his neck, as he had a thousand times before.

This was Fort Weyr.

Home.

Despite the deluge of love and reassurance from his dragon, he opened his mouth, and screamed again.

#

"It looks like him," N'ton said, looking down at the unconscious lad swaddled up in blankets under Msnth's wing. "At least, how he did at that age. Or his identical twin. Did he jump forward by accident?" Such training accidents were _very_ unusual...but not outside the realm of possibility. "Lioth, what does Msnth say?"

_That that is his rider, and they are all one._

"All?" N'ton said.

A hesitation. Worry. _That rider is not V'nire._ It underlined the worry his bronze had, that he remembered and spoke the rider's actual name. _Msnth says he is his rider...but I know it's not the _same_ rider._

"What do you mean?"

Just then, another dragonrider came in, an oldtimer man who rode brown Corth. "Where's my son?"

N'ton paused, thinking. "Do you have any other children, V'nim?"

"What sort of question is that to ask me when I come here to make sure this one isn't dead?" the brownrider snapped.

"An important one. Do you have any other children?"

"V'nire. Monella. Wenarnen. S'nira."

"Any others? Any at all?" N'ton had already known of the ones the brownrider had named.

Licking his lips, V'nim said, "One. Vanorian. He was left in the old time, though." A tight, angry look. "His mother thought it was cute to play coy when I made a request of her, and didn't make it back to Fort Weyr in time to join us for the leap forward."

"And why didn't you go and get her yourself?" N'ton asked.

V'nim looked away. "I thought one of the others would, ones without mates or women. She was a frequent stand-in."

N'ton stared at the brownrider, then pressed his lips tight. "Is this Vanorian?" he asked, pointing at the unconscious rider.

V'nim gave him an incredulous look. "Vanorian would be long dead by now."

"Unless V'nire went back _whens _to get him. And why wouldn't he, if it's his twin brother?"

"If this was Vanorian, then Msnth would be dead. Gone _between_. Not here, alive and well."

Bronze Msnth crooned softly at the boy under his wing.

"Take a look at him. Tell me which son of yours this is," N'ton said. "Humor me."

So V'nim did, turning the boy's face back and forth. "No idea," he said eventually. "I haven't seen Vanorian since he was three. Never did learn to tell them apart, either, which is why I only had one near me when the Weyrs jumped forward. I kept V'nire in the weyr with the other brats. Their mam kept Vanorian with her when she wandered. But it has to be V'nire. Has to be."

N'ton stood there and kept thinking, turning the situation of the bronze appearing with a screaming lad trapped in its claws, around and around in his head, as the brownrider, assured his son was alive (if much younger) left. There was something very wrong about the situation.

But the more he thought about it, the more he realized, even if there was, there wasn't anything that could be done about it.

The dragon chose.

And this wouldn't be the first Impression that had been violent and bloody.

Not the first one at all.


End file.
